I've recently written three BASH scripts, each of which are licensed under version 3 of the GNU Public License. In each case, there are already plenty of scripts out there that do more or less the same thing. What makes these stand out is that rather than simply running a single, linear 'for' loop, they will potentially utilize as many CPU cores as you can throw at them. They also have a few other touches like sanity checks and plenty of user tunables, but the multi-core friendly design is by far the most compelling feature of each. backatronic.sh – Easily backup relevant files and databases in a 7-day rotation. flac-distiller.sh – A multithreaded FLAC to MP3 wrapper for Linux & UNIX. mp3-o-matic.sh – A multithreaded WAV to MP3 wrapper for Linux & UNIX. Each of these scripts is hosted on the tuxhelp.org wiki, so feel free to head over, create an account and post your own improvements or – better yet – your own useful scripts.
blank-me-not.sh New script on TuxHelp.org: blank-me-not.sh – A wrapper script to disable power saving while running the application of your choice. Normally you'd want your screensaver to come on automatically when your system doesn't see any keyboard or mouse input for some period of time. This saves on both power and wear-and-tear on your components. However, there are many legitimate situations where temporarily disabling your screensaver makes perfect sense: Watching feature-length movies Putting on a slideshow or video presentation Playing video games with a joystick or gamepad These needs in mind, blank-me-not.sh acts as a wrapper which can temporarily disable power saving features while the application of your choice is running. Try it out, let me know what you think.
